Who the hell says "86'd"?

Last year my band Death By Nostalgia opened for Les Savy Fav. The coolest part about the whole experience was that LSF’s lead singer Tim Harrington stood by the stage and watched our entire set. Regardless of whether he was actually into it or just being polite, Tim’s a class act. It happens so many times that the star headlining band disappears for the opening bands—presumably to read passages from the bible and volunteer at local soup kitchens, or whatever it is that real rock stars do between sound check and show time—that it was refreshing to see someone from a well-known band actually take the time to listen to the other bands on the bill.

That’s why I was so saddened to hear that Tim Harrington has recently found himself in trouble with the staff of the Pioneer Casino in Vegas. He seems like such a nice guy, he doesn’t deserve to be treated so disrespectfully.

Looking on the positive side of the story however, we can now rightfully claim that Death By Nostalgia is on equal footing with eight mud wrestling competitors. This is great news. Mud wrestling seems to enjoy continued popularity, so I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before we will also be able to play events where creepy men hoot at us and yell at us to take off our halter tops and thongs (note to self. Start wearing thongs and engaging in lewd conduct. And if we "want to start doing some 'lesbo' stuff, that would be great too.") What we lack in mud-soaked boobs we more than make up for with intelligent lyrics and complicated music. And we all know that smarts trump sex appeal, right? Right.

I'm Burned Out On Burgers

Last weekend I learned that vegetarians shouldn’t be in charge of lighting barbeques. I also learned that when I invite people over for parties, I really should spend at least part of the day preparing for it, rather than heading off to go surfing for the entire afternoon. On second thought, forget it. How many more times will I have the chance to go surfing this year? Still, I felt kind of bad that people showed up before I even got home, and even more bad that everyone had arrived before I even finished putting together the second hibachi. Despite that I think most people had a good time. I credit Graham for that though—buying tons of beer and food for everyone was his idea, and a good one at that. Lucky he was there, or I might have resorted to grilling cans of beans and serving water. Disorganized is my middle name.

But back to the lighting of the barbeque fiasco. Graham tried to get the first one going. I think he had the right idea with stacking the briquettes into a pyramid in the middle, but he’s way too cautious with the lighter fluid. A tiny little flame and a bit of smoke does not a roaring fire make. Squirting more lighter fluid onto the not quite burning briquettes seemed like a good idea at the time. The resulting massive cloud of smoke and no additional flame made it clear to everyone that it actually wasn’t a good idea at all.

Thinking I had learned from his mistakes, I tried lighting the now awesomely built second hibachi. I squirted what I thought was way too much lighter fluid, struck a match and let it rip. Oh, did I say rip? I think I used about 10 matches before it finally caught.

Two hours later we finally had enough heat and coals to start frying up the veggie burgers and kebabs. But were they ever good. The guests that hadn’t gone home to get something to eat all seemed to agree.

My bike is being cranky these days. Yesterday on the way home from the hospital after getting my stomach pumped, the right pedal came loose. Turns out the threads where the pedal screws into the crank are stripped. Crap! I just replaced the pedals last week. After my pavement splashdown the week before on Sackville street I must have knocked something out of alignment, because my left pedal seized up on me. All this is to say that the good folks at Jack Nauss still rule. Knowledgeable service, good rates. And trusting. I forgot they don’t take interac and had no money on me. No worries they said, just come back to pay us later. Oh, and they didn’t charge for labour.

Breakfast of Champions

Breakfast was a new delight this morning. Last week I was feeling down because blueberry season was over. For three glorious weeks in Nova Scotia, you can buy five pounds of blueberries for a paltry $10 at the SuperStore. Think about it. Usually you have to pay about $4 for just over a pound of frozen berries. Those three weeks are close to heaven (true heaven would involve some sort of never ending supply of fresh raspberries), and I generally go through about 15 pounds of blueberries before they disappear from the shelves.

But now I have reason to rejoice. There’s a new berry season, and it comes late. So far nightshade hasn’t surpassed either raspberries or blueberries as a topping for my shredded wheat, but it’s pretty damn close. And in a few days I should have enough to make that pie I was talking about. But I’m not going to waste it on my enemies.

Like little deadly candies

All evening all I could think about was having more nightshade berries. Eating popcorn at the movies was good, but nothing like my little minifigs. And the sushi we had afterwards was okay, but it was the sweet, juicy and dangerous that my palate was craving.

When I got home I discovered a dead pidgeon by the garden. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence and had nothing to do with the fact that I have potentially poisonous fruit in my back yard. There were no marks on the pidgeon which was a bit odd—cats normally do a bit of shredding when they kill things, but this bird was completely intact. Still, it probably died of natural causes. I ate three more berries.

It was a bit hard finding ripe ones in complete darkness, but I managed to scrounge a few together. I’m hoping the fact that they were picked and eaten at night will give me even stronger superpowers. I haven’t noticed any improvement in my night vision yet, but I imagine it takes a little while to get the full effect. They may need to be eaten during a full moon too. That means I have just over two weeks to wait. There are plenty of green berries and blossoms, so there will probably still be some berries by then.

Taste the Forbidden Fruit

This afternoon while hanging out some laundry I discovered that some of the nightshade berries had ripened. Black and dangerous, yet compelling. Something about them was drawing me closer. I picked a couple and held them in my hand. My roommate Wendy looked on horrified as I popped one into my mouth. I figured one little berry wouldn’t kill me. It probably wouldn’t even hurt me. I bet it’s like those reports on foods that give you cancer. Like broccoli will give you cancer. And then you read in the fine print that you need to eat thirty pounds of broccoli every day for twenty years in order to get cancer from it.

I expected black nightshade to taste terrible. Things that are poisonous are supposed to be bitter, or maybe have that burning taste. That’s how animals know that it’s bad for them, right? The berry was juicy, with little white seeds. If you’ve ever tried fresh figs, the consistency was very similar. And the taste? It was delicious! It even tasted a bit like fresh figs! And it wasn’t bitter at all.

I quickly had another one. Just as good as the first. I feel like I’ve stumbled upon some sort of berry conspiracy. Someone out there doesn’t want us to know that black nightshade is the bomb. Maybe it’s some sort of international consortium of fig farmers. If people found out that they could eat something fig-like for free just by picking wild berries that grow in their back yard, why would they ever want to pay a dollar for one lousy fresh fig? Or perhaps nightshade gives you special powers. Like night vision.

I am still a bit concerned about the possibility of poison. I got a bit of a stomach ache about an hour later, but I think it may have been psychosomatic. It quickly passed and I was fine. So far, this whole poisonous berry thing rocks.

In The Garden Of Evil

This spring I planted a vegetable garden in my back yard, just like the last two years. I’ve never had huge luck with the garden, there’s too much shade in the back yard to ever have a bumper crop. But there’s still something satisfying about seeing little sprouts magically come up from the dirt, blossom, grow little beans and peas. So it’s worth it, even if I only get a few good feeds from my crop. This year I hoped would be different. Last year’s hurricane cleaned out some trees, making it slightly sunnier in the yard. I bought about 250 pounds of compost and manure to help bolster the mediocre soil. I was ready. The ground was ready. This year would be different.

So I planted. And then…

Nothing.

Nothing I planted came up. That’s a slight exaggeration; I did see two or three bean sprouts and a pea sprout. But that was it. No rows of little sprouts, no carrot tops. Certainly no green onions. As the spring turned to summer, I grew more disheartened. I gave up weeding the garden. There didn’t seem to be any point.

Nature took over, meaning a whole bunch of things that I didn’t plant started to grow. Soon one plant in particular began to take over the entire garden. I ignored it at first. Then I noticed blossoms forming on the plants. A lot of blossoms. And my hopes began to rise. Maybe some stray vegetable seeds floated through the air and found their way into my little garden and decided to grow. Or perhaps when I rinsed out the compost bucket and threw the water into the garden there were a few seeds at the bottom. Maybe I’ll get some kind of harvest after all! Some peppers, or some kind of exotic tomato variety?

The blossoms turned into clusters of little green berries. Dammit. Mystery berries are usually a bad thing. Mothers always tell their little kids not to eat berries they find. Everyone knows that unless you buy berries at the grocery store, they’re poisonous. It’s one of the first things we learn about. You’re born, you learn to walk, you learn to talk, you learn that wild berries and wild mushrooms are deadly. One bite will kill you.

Not wanting to completely give up on my hope that I’ll get something edible, I described the plants to a few of my friends. “The leaves are…leaf shaped. You know, they’re green and leafy.” Okay, let’s try again. “Dark green, broad leaves. Pointy at the end, and the edges are a bit jagged, but not as jagged as they could be. There are clusters of little green round berries. They look like miniature green tomatoes. Maybe they are little green tomatoes?” Lisa said, “That sounds like nightshade.”

Aw crap. They also call that stuff deadly nightshade. It’s like, the most poisonous of all poisonous berries. Just look at the name. I’m probably going to die just by looking at them. A quick internet search confirmed that what I was growing was a variety known as “Black Nightshade.” So it wasn’t deadly nightshade, but it’s just as deadly. It will kill your kids (hey, your mother was right!), and it’s not so great for adults either.

I should probably rip the stuff out, but now the idea of having a garden full of poisonous berries is starting to appeal to me. It gives me goth cred or something. And maybe I’ll try to make some enemies over the next couple of weeks, and then bake a nightshade pie. I’ll offer it to my newfound enemies as a peace offering. Ha ha! Goodbye enemies! Yup, it’s time to find some people I don’t like.